She flung a handful of paint at me, breaking our standoff. I shut my eyes before it hit my face and neck.
“Oh, you’re going to regret that!”
I charged toward her. Brenna screamed, running from me while flinging paint over her shoulder. I caught her around the waist with one arm and pinned her to my body.
“Surrender,” I whispered into her ear, and she shivered. These little signs of her attraction made it hard for me to put away my feelings.
Brenna writhed, trying to loosen my grip. She kicked backward, but I blocked it before her foot could connect with my nuts.
“That wasn’t nice, darlin’.”
Despite her strength, she didn’t stand a chance against me, not unless I gave an inch. Since I didn’t want our game to end, I did. I brought down a handful of paint onto her head usingboth hands. She let out another high-pitched yell, then dodged around me to grab more paint. We kept flinging paint at each other, trading the role of chaser and chasee.
Both of us were out of breath, loudly huffing and puffing when we flopped onto our backs in the center of the room. Paint was everywhere—in our hair, all over our clothes, streaked across the walls, some of which we’d need to redo tomorrow.
But I didn’t care because Brenna was smiling at me like I wasn’t the boy who broke her heart.
“We made a huge mess,” she said.
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching toward her, brushing my fingertips over her cheek. She didn’t move. I showed her a gob of paint I’d wiped off her skin. “And it’s going to be a bitch to remove this.”
She mirrored my movements, bringing her fingers to my chin, stealing paint from my skin. My entire body ignited at the simple touch.
“Worth it.”
20
NATHAN
Now
The South was madefor baseball.
Brenna and I made our way through the backyard to the baseball diamond in Hart Park, where we played as kids. The atmosphere was perfect. We had unseasonably warm weather with a slight breeze to keep us cool while we played. The sun was setting, brilliant reds and oranges peeking out from behind wispy clouds.
“If I see you grimace even once—” Brenna started.
I turned, placing my finger an inch from her lips to silence her before she could finish the sentence. The air from her gasp hit my fingers.
“I’ll be fine.”
Ever since our paint fight a week ago, all I could think about was touching her again. Even though she was engaged to another man, completely off-limits, and hadn’t forgiven me for our past. This was my punishment for treating her the way I did when we were kids.
I wondered if this unending temptation was what my dad had endured for Brenna’s mom when he was still married. My dad was the villain in my parent’s marriage and in my life following their divorce. I never wanted to be like him, to succumb to moral weakness.
Yet here I was, admiring the long column of Brenna’s neck as she pulled her hair into a ponytail. The paint had finally faded from both of us after a few days of diligently following removal techniques we found online.Worth it, Brenna had said that night. With each passing day, I agreed with her more. That night alleviated the strain between us, and we’d slipped into a version of friends—not what we used to be, but something we could build on.
“Sharpe! Quinn!” Ax shouted when we stepped through the opening in the chain-link fence to the baseball diamond. He halted catch with one of our old teammates, Vic Stark, and jogged over from first base. Brenna stiffened at my side when Vic, one of the more bitter teammates about not going to state, came into view.
“It’s water under the bridge,” I whispered. “He won’t say anything.”
She nodded once, weakly.
I locked eyes with her and vowed, “I won’t let him.”
Ax held his hand out for me to slap, then opened his arms to Brenna for a hug. It lasted as long as any platonic hug, but the seconds dragged as they embraced. “Glad y’all could make it.”
“I haven’t played in years,” Brenna said. “Hopefully, I won’t ruin your chances.”
